


don't let go

by alitaire



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, I wrote 1.5k of plot to make Claude honest, Minor Character Death, Pre-Relationship, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23150290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alitaire/pseuds/alitaire
Summary: A failed assassination attempt puts the Alliance army on high alert. Claude and Balthus seem to know more than they let on.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan, My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 108





	don't let go

**Author's Note:**

> Set after chapter 14, the Aillel map, in Verdant Wind. 
> 
> Unbetaed so let me know if there's any weird mistakes!

She had been checking on Balthus’s injury from their most recent skirmish when she noticed him.

“I’m tellin’ you pal, I’m fine! No need to send me above ground only to scare the timid little lady,” Balthus insisted, flexing his arm as they walked toward the former Ashen Wolves classroom. The gash on his arm was wide, but not too deep. Still, Byleth didn’t miss his wince as he moved. In her periphery, a shadow silently followed their steps.

“If you scared Marianne, Hilda would have your head,” Byleth snorted as they came to a stop in front of their destination. She took another step forward, turning her back to their shadow and obscuring her silent hand signal to the man in front of her.

_Someone is tailing us._

For once, she was grateful for Balthus’s long history with bounty hunters as he laughed without betraying even a hint of her signal. “Oh man, she’d take my head clean off. If you keep insisting though, I’ll go after checking in with Yuri, alright?”

“You better.”

“On the Goddess,” he promised, his eyes gleaming with intent. “By the way, Constance was asking for you about some new magic nonsense or something. Might be good to go around and find her.”

_Circle around._

She nodded, bidding him farewell as she took the path to the Abyss living quarters. As she approached areas with more residents, the shadow tailing her became bolder, following closer than when she had been with Balthus. She took a sharp turn into the scrap heap area, where she knew fewer Abyssians were loitering and ducked behind a pile of rotting planks of wood.

_Didn’t follow. Not an amateur at least._ Not that it mattered as she heard the sounds of a scuffle and then Balthus’s booming voice cry out in triumph a moment later. 

“Okay pal, who do you work for? Who’re you after?” He demanded as he restrained their shadow on the floor. He was a nondescript looking man wearing plain clothes. He looked like any other Abyssian, but the array of blades Balthus had knocked and scattered about them gave away his true profession.

“That damn prince… I didn’t think his people would notice—” He broke off with a pained hiss as Balthus beared down harder on his bound wrists.

“Who are you working for,” Byleth repeated, steel in her eyes. The man shrunk from her gaze and futilely struggled before going limp with a resigned, “Damn it...”

“Hey, answer the question—”

Balthus broke off as the man began to convulse. Byleth lunged at him, but it was too late. _Poison_ , her mind supplied as the man’s eyes rolled and then stared at nothing. 

He was dead.

“He said something about a prince,” Byleth said after a moment. Balthus rose with a grimace. 

“A prince, huh…?” There was an odd note to his question and, suddenly, Byleth was reminded of Balthus dragging her and Hapi to the Enbarr market streets five years prior. She glanced at him, but he was focused on the body, intent on not looking at her. 

“Do you have an idea of who he was after?” His frown deepened at her question, but when he didn’t respond, Byleth sighed and crouched down to search the now cooling body. The only things on him were a few more daggers and a vial of some sort of clear liquid. When she held it up to him, Balthus shook his head.

“Definitely not a bounty hunter, and he was after you, pal. Better to take that to someone who would know better. Considering _this_ ,” he said, poking the assassin’s corpse with the toe of his boot, “It’s gotta be a poison, yeah?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she sighed.

* * *

“Oh, this is definitely a poison,” Linhardt confirmed after the pale glow of his magic caused a sample of the liquid to bubble violently.

Byleth and Balthus had carried the corpse out of Abyss after informing Yuri. No one had seen the incident but there was no telling if the assassin they had been carrying was the only one lurking in the shadows. 

_Better safe than sorry_ , Yuri had agreed grimly. 

They had gone to Marianne first as she and Hilda were the only people in the infirmary when they had arrived, but Hilda had run out to fetch Linhardt and his expertise without complaint after Byleth explained the situation. When she had returned with the yawning bishop in tow, Byleth sent her out again to fetch Claude, Shamir, and Seteth.

“So some sort of fast acting poison?” Balthus asked from his seat where Marianne was tending to his arm. He had tried to brush off his injury when Marianne noticed it, but her glare sent his ass straight into a chair for treatment. Byleth couldn’t help her small grin of satisfaction.

“I can’t say,” Linhardt replied as he looked up from the corpse. “The poison he ingested and whatever is in this vial seem to be different compounds altogether. The poison that killed him is a relatively common type used, well-” he waved his hand, “-all over Fódlan. What’s in here, why, I’ve never seen it before.” He seemed almost excited by the prospect as he studied the vial.

“I might be able to help with that,” Claude said as he walked in with Shamir following closely behind. At Byleth’s questioning look, he explained, “Hilda found us first so we came immediately.”

“What happened,” Shamir demanded, walking to the body. The spymaster’s face was calm, but Byleth could hear the anger in her voice, not that she could blame her. After the incident at Ailell, they thought they had weeded out all of the spies in their midst, but if an assassin had been able to infiltrate even now, then who knew where else the holes in their security were?

“He was tailing me in Abyss,” Byleth explained. “I led him off and Balthus caught him when we reached somewhere more isolated.”

“He was _following_ you?” Claude repeated, his eyes bright with alarm. “Are either of you hurt?” He asked as he glanced between her and Balthus, but the larger man shook his head. 

“With the immaculate king of grappling there, there was nothing to worry about! Right after I caught him though, he offed himself real quick. We couldn’t get anything from him.” At those words, Byleth shot him a sharp look but again he was looking away from her. She instead turned to Claude.

“Actually, before he died, he said something about a prince.” She heard an odd noise from Balthus but she chose to ignore him. “He called us “the prince’s people” although I’m not sure what he meant.”

Claude looked concerned, his eyes flickering from Balthus to her, before he sighed scratching the back of his head. “We’ll have to do more investigating about this. Shamir, when Seteth gets here, gather up some knights and help Yuri secure Abyss. They know the tunnels better than we do.” She nodded, her lips set in a determined line.

“Lin, is there anything on him that we can use to identify our mystery man?” Claude asked as he walked to the body. The healer in question shrugged as he handed Claude the vial of poison when a hand was offered. 

“I was only called for poison testing. Professor Manuela is much better at things like that.”

Byleth blinked as she realized she hadn’t seen the older woman all morning. “Ah, Professor Manuela was… indisposed after last night,” Marianne explained with embarrassed flush. Balthus nodded beside her with an almost nostalgic smile, likely remembering the previous night’s celebration. “She asked me to come in this morning in her place.”

“I see,” Claude said as he ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. “Well, can you wake her up and have her check the body? We need any leads possible on who might have sent him.” 

“As for the rest of you, don’t find yourself alone and stay on high alert,” Claude said, his expression serious. “Let the others know to travel in groups of at least two or three, but don’t mention the assassin. We don’t want to stir up panic.”

When the room nodded in return, Claude returned to his easy smile as he walked out of the infirmary. “We’ll figure out who sent him and stop any further breaches. In the meantime,” he held up the vial, “I’ll figure out what’s going on with _this_.”

* * *

“Don’t be alone, huh.”

Claude chuckled at her accusing tone as she walked into his room unannounced. “And what about you, my friend? Where’s your travelling companion?”

She frowned. “...you’re here.”

“And so are you,” he agreed as he set down the concoction he had been mixing and turned in his seat to face her. “So, what do you need?”

_He’s worried_ , she realized. His hands would move up and then shift abruptly as if he had aborted the movement to comb through his hair. He was smiling, but it was stilted, not like the one she had been seeing so often these days. 

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

“An assassin snuck into our base while we’re in the middle of a war, Teach,” he pointed out. “There’s not much going _right_ at the moment.”

“Do you have an idea about the prince he mentioned?” She tried instead and was rewarded with the slightest intake of breath.

“I have a hunch,” he said finally, glancing at his mess of a desk. “The poison he was carrying. It’s rare.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“It’s not from Fódlan,” he said. “I’ve seen it before. It only takes a fraction of what was in the vial and its effects are delayed but deadly. Nearly unnoticeable until too late.”

He looked back at her and she was taken aback by the fear in his eyes. “Are you sure you weren’t hurt?”

She stepped to him and took his trembling hands in hers. “I’m fine, Claude. I promise.”

“White magic isn’t enough to neutralize it.”

“He never got close to me,” she reassured him. A thought occurred to her and she cocked an eyebrow. “And shouldn’t you be more worried about Balthus? He was the one who actually restrained the assassin.”

Claude smiled slightly, his shoulders relaxing a fraction as he squeezed her hands. “I already checked on him. Nothing but that wound from the other day, but he’s staying put with Linhardt keeping an eye just in case. He said you were fine, but I was still…”

He glanced away as he trailed off but his grip didn’t slacken. She stared at him in confusion. For as much as she had learned to read him, there were still times that she didn’t understand his reticence or what he was thinking. He had been worried about her, but she had to seek him out. 

He wouldn’t have said anything.

But even still, he didn’t pull away.

“Claude?”

His eyes returned to hers. “Yes, my friend?”

“I trust you.”

He blinked at that and she squeezed his hands again, her frown set and determined. It was when he began to chuckle and then laugh that she loosened her grip, now even more confused.

“Claude?”

“You… You’re…” he trailed off again with another chuckle before he grasped her slackening hands in his and beamed at her, eyes watery and his smile tremulous, but sincere. “You’re really special, you know that?”

“I… I don’t think I’ve said anything special?” she asked, baffled.

“No, I think that’s the most remarkable thing about you,” he laughed again, before rising from his seat and leading them out of his room.

“Where are we going?” 

“The infirmary. There… there’s something I need to tell you,” he didn’t look at her as he replied, but his hand was still strong and steady in hers. She held on.

“Something that Balthus needs to hear, too?” She asked lightly. “And here I was getting my hopes up.”

He let out a choked laugh at that and she smiled at the sound. “I’m sorry to disappoint my dear lady, but we must have an audience as I whisper sweet nothings to you. Anything less would be unbecoming of a noble,” he said in an affected tone, glancing at her and matching her grin.

“There’s nothing for it I suppose,” she sighed as he snickered. “But really, why Balthus?”

“It’s… something he already knows,” his voice betrayed his hesitation, but his eyes were resolute. “But it’s something I want _you_ to know.”

“Okay,” she said and he smiled softly at her as they approached the door of the infirmary.

“Byleth?”

She met his gaze.

“Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the assassin that appears in Abyss in both AM and CF after Claude leaves Fódlan. Its super funny to me that the only person who seems to have even an inkling of Claude's real identity is Mr. If-I-Think-Too-Hard, I'll-Pass-Out King of Grappling who ALSO happens to be a terrible liar.
> 
> Check out my [twitter](https://twitter.com/Tesereil)! I talk a lot about Claude and also my recent playthroughs as I redo all the routes for Abyss and the Ashen Wolves.


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